Category Archives: debate

From Aeon Magazine, this is an essay by a philosophy professor. He says that when a person’s beliefs are based on “wilful ignorance”, when they are “false, or morally repugnant, or irresponsible, or dangerous” then we have no right to believe in them.

“Consider those who believe that the lunar landings or the Sandy Hook school shooting were unreal, government-created dramas; that Barack Obama is Muslim; that the Earth is flat; or that climate change is a hoax. In such cases, the right to believe is proclaimed as a negative right; that is, its intent is to foreclose dialogue, to deflect all challenges; to enjoin others from interfering with one’s belief-commitment. The mind is closed, not open for learning. They might be ‘true believers’, but they are not believers in the truth.”

When we refuse to learn, we give up our right to believe in “our facts”.

This is a short video about a new program at a university in the U.S. (Purdue, in Indiana) that aims to shift the risk of student loan debt from the student to the university. Basically, the students promise to pay the university a small percentage of their future income after graduation instead of having student loans — with interest rates — that burden them regardless of what happens after graduation.

The average amount a student has to repay in total is $37,000 (which is 6% more than it was last year).

The average amount a student has to repay per month is $351.

Interest rates on paying back student loans range from about 2.7% to 8.2%.

There are many issues to debate with a program like Purdue’s, but as someone who finally paid off her student loans — with interest rates at about 4 or 5% — for undergraduate and graduate school in her 30s, I wish I’d at least had this option.